Over the past two weeks, the Mavericks have six consecutive wins, one jersey retirement, numerous missed games by their best players for health reasons and two eye-catching wins over the teams with the best records in each conference.
All of which means nothing as far as Jalen Brunson is concerned, although he did say the Mavericks’ vibes are pretty awesome after their 113-99 victory over the Chicago Bulls Sunday evening.
“They’re immaculate right now, very immaculate,” Brunson said of the vibes. “But I’m going to change it up. I think they’re so immaculate because we’re not even worrying about career highs, we’re not worrying about jersey retirements, not worrying about beating whatever number they are in this league. We’re treating every game the same. I think that’s why this run is so special.
“And I don’t think we’re going to let this slip anytime soon.”
And it’s turning into quite the run, indeed.
The Mavericks’ winning streak reached six games Sunday thanks largely to Luka Dončić, who amassed his third triple-double of the season (39th of his career) with 22 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists.
But it was a win that was built with the Mavericks’ defense more than anything else. They held the high-scoring Bulls to 99 points and just 67 in the final three quarters, during which the Mavericks scored 91.
“It feels amazing,” Dončić said. “The whole team is playing together. We’re playing great defense. And most important, we’re having fun.
“We realized we can beat good teams, too. We beat Golden State, Chicago, the top two teams. We can play with everybody.”
Then, as if to reiterate what people need to be paying attention to, he said: “We played great defense. We have guys who sacrifice a lot on the defensive end. And we play team defense.”
And this was no garden-variety team. The Bulls came in on an NBA-best nine game winning streak and were 26-10, best in the Eastern Conference. Earlier this week, the Mavericks beat the Warriors, who were tops in the Western Conference at the time.
The Bulls have two of the top eight scorers in the NBA in Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. But the Mavericks limited both to 20 points and LaVine needed 21 shots to get his 20.
The six wins in a row tie the longest victory streak the Mavericks have had since 2011. During the win streak, the Mavericks are averaging 108.7 points and surrendering just 93.
And’ it improved their record to 22-18 as they prepare for road games this week at New York and Memphis.
They also stopped a four-game losing streak against the Bulls and earned a split of this season’s two-game series after losing 117-107 in Chicago in November.
For three quarters, it was a nip-and-tuck affair. But with the Mavericks up 83-81 early in the fourth, they went on a 19-7 blitz to tuck the game in their hip pocket.
And Luka was a beast after having missed Friday’s game in Houston with a right ankle problem.
“He looked all right, didn’t he?” acting coach Sean Sweeney said. “He did a real good job. Chicago’s a physical defense. They do a lot of using their bodies. They try to get up and into you. As the game went on, it was really impressive from him how he played through that contact and figure out where the opportunities were to get in the paint and score, but also the assists.
“The other thing that was really, really important was 14 defensive rebounds. These guys are putting big bodies on the floor. You need guys to come in and rebound and I thought the effort he gave there was spectacular.”
And while Dončić was superb, he had help. Maxi Kleber had a career-best six 3-pointers en route to 18 points and Josh Green beat his career-best of 17 points on Friday with 18 on Sunday.
And Brunson had 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting.
“We’re growing as a team,” Brunson said. “Our chemistry on the court is a lot better. And we’re just locked in right now. When things go bad, we’re not folding. We just got to keep it going.
“We’re trying to have that never-quit mentality. We’re in a good space right now. And we’re also having fun, most importantly.
Twitter: @ESefko
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